The sister of Egyptian-British striker Alaa Abd el-Fattah landed in Sharm el-Sheikh to fight for him as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and other world leaders opened the COP27 climate summit.
“I am here to do my job to clarify my brother’s case and save him,” Sanaa Seif, Abd el-Fattah’s sister, said after arriving in Sharm el-Sheikh in the early hours of Monday.
“I’m worried. I am here to put pressure on all the leaders coming, especially Prime Minister Rishi Sunak,” said Seif, who recently led a sit-in outside the British Foreign Office in London.
Sunak said he would raise Abd el-Fattah’s case with Egyptian leaders. Abd el-Fattah had informed his circle of relatives that he would avoid drinking water on Sunday in an escalation of his protest.
The 40-year-old political activist rose to fame with the 2011 Egyptian uprising, but has been imprisoned for most of the era ever since. Most recently sentenced in December 2021 to five years for spreading false news, he has been on hunger strike for 220 days opposed to his own of imprisonment and imprisonment.
Egyptian authorities did not respond to calls for comment on Abd el-Fattah’s case, but in the past said he was receiving food and was transferred to a prison with more serious situations earlier this year.
Abd el-Fattah’s circle of relatives said he fed only minimal calories and some fiber in the previous year. After visits from the circle of relatives in October, Seif said, “He looks very weak. It slowly fades. It looks like a skeleton
Some rights activists have criticized the resolution allowing Egypt to host COP27, bringing to light a long-running crackdown on political dissent in which human rights teams say tens of thousands of people have been jailed and raising concerns about access and space for protests during the talks.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said security measures were needed to stabilize Egypt after the country’s revolution in 2011. Egypt hopes to raise its diplomatic profile through UN climate talks.
More than a hundred world leaders are preparing to talk about a growing challenge that meteorologists call Earth’s biggest challenge: greenhouse fuel emissions, which is driving global warming.
Climate events are taking a stand amid global crises around food, energy and emerging inflation, and expectations of progress are low.
Dozens of heads of state or government will speak on Monday, the first day of “high-level” foreign weather talks in Egypt, with more to come in the coming days.
“The concern is that priorities will take priority,” Simon Stiell, the U. N. deputy climate official, told a news conference.
The “fear is that we will lose day, week, month, year, because we can’t,” he said.
In 2009, developed countries pledged $100 billion a year through 2020 for weather coverage in poor countries. The commitment remained largely unfulfilled.
Only 29 of the 194 countries have submitted advanced weather plans, as called for at UN talks in Glasgow, Stitell noted.
French President Emmanuel Macron suggested the United States, China and other non-European countries “step up” efforts to reduce emissions and provide monetary assistance to other countries.
“Europeans are paying,” Macron told French and African weather activists on the sidelines of COP27. “We are the ones who must pay.
Fresh off his election victory, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is expected to attend the summit later, hoping to save the Amazon from deforestation after defeating climate-skeptic leader Jair Bolsonaro.
Sunak, the new leader, reversed his resolution not to attend the talks and suggested countries move “faster and faster” in the transition away from fossil fuels.
On Sunday, leaders of emerging countries scored a small victory when delegates agreed to include the questionable “loss and damage” factor on the summit agenda.
Pakistan, which chairs the tough G77-China negotiating bloc of more than 130 emerging countries, has made this issue a priority.
“We see this as good fortune for the parties,” said Egypt’s Sameh Shoukry, who chairs COP27.
The United States and the European Union have dwelt on the factor for years, fearing it would create an unlimited framework for reparations.
But European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans welcomed the inclusion of loss and damage, tweeting that “the climate crisis is having effects beyond what vulnerable countries can have on their own. “